It took me a couple days of researching the San Diego MTS Web site to find the most suitable solution for my trip. The reason why it took me a couple days versus a few minutes was because I was searching for a bus that I had seen many a time while I was driving south on the 15 every evening from the Carmel Mountain area. I saw it in the carpool lane and it looked more like a tour/travel bus than the traditional buses. The MTS search engine didn’t work the first few times I tried using it. Later I went through the region maps to look at the routes and found a few that appeared to start in downtown and make their way to the Poway/Carmel Mountain area. After reading each of their associated schedules I realized that these special commuter buses were only going in the direction of traffic in each part of the day. This meant that it was going the opposite way that I needed to travel; it went south in the morning when I needed to go north and vice versa. So I was back on another search. I used the MTS trip builder on their site and tried a few different options, all of which seemed to have me transferring between a couple or more buses. I found one trip that had a transfer at the City College Transit Station on 11 and C. It dawned on me that I could just ride my bike over to that station and hop on the 20B and go north for about an hour and be dropped off in the neighborhood of my work, which happened to be about ¾ of a mile from the bus stop.
Starting June 23rd, 2008, I began my commuting experience. I arrived at the bus stop at 11th and C at about 7:10am and waited for the 20B. I saw a 20 and a 20A pass by, and then about a half hour later pass by again. I asked one of the drivers on the 20, if the 20B was late. The driver seemed absolutely clueless and said that he didn’t know. I brought up the MTS Web site on my iPhone and found a contact number. I called their center and talked to a very nice lady that told me that the 20B only runs really early in the morning and later in the evening, and that I needed to take the 20 up to where I needed to go. I looked at the schedule at the stop and saw the indications of B on the very early times, and then chuckled to myself. Oops, oh well. So I took the next, thus making me an hour later than I had expected to be.
After getting on the bus I realized that this route was a very popular one. I ended up standing for about half of the trip. Then I thought to myself that the next morning I would ride down to a previous stop hoping that I would be able to get a seat before the hordes of people got on. I got to work and had warm receptions from my co-workers who had known previously that I would be commuting by bus. Some teased, “How was your bus ride?” It didn’t bother me though; I began to wonder how much money I would save by commuting, not to mention the health benefits and ultimately my smaller carbon footprint.
I figured that if I sold my car (kept my motorcycle) that would save me $260 a month as I would no longer have to make that car payment. When I sold my car I would save roughly $100 by dropping the car insurance on it. With no car, I would also save the gas money I spent. It was costing me just under $50 to fill my car, which I was doing about every 5-6 days, which works out to roughly $250-$300 in gas savings a month. Then figure in oil changes and tire rotation for a year is about $240, working out to $20 a month. Totaling this all up I stand to save $630-$680 a month. As you can imagine, this was a very easy decision at that point. I was going to make this new commuting situation work.
After work, I hopped on my bicycle and rode to the stop, waited for a few minutes and the bus arrived. I put my bicycle on the front of the bus on the rack and climbed aboard. An hour later I arrived downtown at 10th and Broadway where the last stop is. I talked to the driver to find out that people also get on at this stop to go north-bound. This got me thinking, I could catch the bus right there in the mornings bypassing even more people to make sure that I had a seat and a spot for my bike on the rack. Sure enough, the next morning I got on at that stop and had a spot for my bike on the rack and also had my choice of many available seats.
I had an idea while I was on the bus, “I should get a laptop and use that 2 hours a day to get some work done.” I could do personal Bey Media work or I could talk to my boss Heidi to see if there was a way that I could get a wireless broadband card and work on Emerald (my job) projects while commuting on the bus. I began talking to Heidi about getting a laptop and working on the bus and she actually beat me to the idea and said that I maybe I should get a wireless broadband card and work while I was on the bus. Great minds think alike. I talked to our IT department about the card and they said that they would order it. This got me to thinking. If I did Emerald work during my commute, that would equal about 2 hours a day, thus only needing me to be in the office for 6 hours instead of 8. This would mean that if I got in to work at about 8:30am, I could leave at about 3:00pm with a half hour lunch, which would put me getting home at about 4:00 or 4:30pm versus 6:30p.
Well seeing as how, I had yet to order my laptop, I decided to begin reading an ASP.NET 2.0 book that I had been meaning to read for over a year and a half. I figured that I would keep doing this until my laptop arrived. It was really nice to finally be able to do this. Not only did I feel a bit of accomplishment, I also was learning something that would help me further my career.
One day while on my way to the bus stop in the morning, I saw that two bikes were already in the rack on the bus. Well, I guess I was going to have to catch the next bus getting me to work a half hour later than usual. Actually, having to catch a later bus because of this same bike situation has happened to me a couple times now. I figure I will have to leave my house a bit earlier to try and secure a place for me on the bus. It tends to be a bit frustrating getting to the bus stop expecting to hop on and commute off to work, and have to wait for a half hour until the next bus arrives.
I should be getting my wireless broadband card sometime next week, thus allowing me to work remotely while commuting. In fact, I have written this entire article while commuting home. Let me tell you that having a laptop on your lap while riding on the bus is an interesting experience. Buses aren’t really built for comfort. The seats are comfortable enough and let you be really close to your neighbor. This can be interesting if you happen to have a homeless guy sit next to you. Then you have the bumpiness of the ride, the entire bus seems to vibrate at some points. Finally depending on your seat position, you can also be sitting sideways to the driving direction making your body sway side to side when the bus stops and goes. Now add in the typing factor and you can see how this might be an interesting combo.
To sum this all up, I have been commuting via bus and bicycle for about a month now. I told myself, give it a month and see how it affects you. I will say that I enjoy quite a few things. The first is the fact that I get to ride my bike every day now which works out to about 6 miles a day. It’s a nice bit of daily exercise. Another thing I like is that I have that two hours on the bus that I can work on just about anything; balancing my checking accounts, writing articles, learning code, or doing development/design projects. These were things that I found it difficult to do in my free time and now feel a sense of relief being able to accomplish them. I also enjoy having someone else drive me back and forth to work, like my own personal City of San Diego chauffeur. After telling my story to people that I know and having that story told to other people, I have also had an overwhelming response of support and praise. With the useful time spent commuting, savings in money, exercise, chauffeuring, not to mention helping the environment, I would have to say that I like the whole experience. In fact, I would highly suggest it to anyone that can accommodate the change in commuting.
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